Narrator LOUVNA
"Ready."
He said it in his calm voice.
A calmness that feels like doors closed over endless corridors.
I nodded and smiled, while my heart was beating faster than it should.
We walked side by side out of the institute gate.
The sky had begun to shift into a shade of orange-gray.
The color of a sunset that reveals nothing… and hides everything.
We didn't talk.
As if words, once spoken, would create a new distance between us.
We chose the usual café at the corner.
The one that is always half-empty, with muted-colored walls and tables without names.
He sat beside me, not in front of me.
These small details… they can tell a lot,
If only I allowed myself to believe.
I put down my books, and he opened his laptop quietly.
I pretended to focus on the papers,
But my eyes drifted toward him sometimes… against my will.
I do not understand MOHITO… nor do I try to pretend I do.
But I feel him.
I feel something heavy behind his eyes, something that refuses to speak its name.
Sometimes, when he looks away, I feel as though he sees another city, another life, other people… people who do not exist here.
I asked softly, as if testing the limits of the light around him:
"MOHITO… are you okay lately?"
He didn't lift his head.
He was typing something on the screen with deep concentration,
as if afraid to make a single mistake.
Then he said, without looking at me:
"I'm fine."
But his voice said the exact opposite.
I wanted to say something… anything.
I wanted to reach out to him, even with a word, even with half a step.
But I… was afraid.
Not of the reply.
But of touching a wound whose depth I didn't know.
I settled for a smile and said:
"Alright… let's start the first part of the research."
He nodded.
And we worked in silence.
A quiet silence… but not a comfortable one.
A silence that feels like rooms locked with two keys.
After almost an hour, I raised my head and looked at him.
He was sitting in the same posture… back straight, hands steady, face expressionless.
But his eyes…
They were tired.
Not study-tired.
Not end-of-day tired.
Tired of something constant.
Something that does not stop even when he sleeps.
I said lightly, trying to make the air less heavy:
"You know… I think you're the worst person I know at remembering assignments."
He didn't expect that.
He turned to me…
And I saw that rare thing:
A small smile.
A real one.
The kind that touches the heart and disappears quickly.
"Maybe," he said.
I laughed softly.
And in that moment… only in that moment… I felt he was close.
Close the way a human should be to another human.
"You know… I never thanked you that day."
My breath stopped before my words did.
I raised my head and looked at him.
"The first day… when you stood between them ."
I don't know what I expected from him…
Maybe a word, a smile, denial…
But he didn't say anything.
Only his eyes… steady, deep, silent.
I continued in a softer voice:
"You looked like… You already knew what was going to happen. Like you'd seen that scene before."
I stared for a long moment.
And for the first time…
I saw the shadow in his eyes.
An emptiness that does not resemble loneliness… but resembles someone who lost something that will never return.
It was the closest connection I ever had with him, as if for the first time, he opened that closed door and allowed me a glance inside.
Then…
His phone rang.
Time stopped.
His face changed.
The dark silence returned.
The shadow returned.
He looked at the screen without showing it to me.
And I knew.
This call…
It was not for me.
Not for the institute.
Not for this world I know.
He said softly, like a door closing:
"I have to go."
I didn't ask why.
I didn't ask for an explanation.
I didn't try to stop him.
I only said:
"Okay."
He gathered his books quickly.
Stood.
Turned his back.
And walked away.
Leaving me there…
Holding a cup of tea that had gone cold,
An open book,
And a heart asking:
Where does MOHITO go… when he leaves?
I stayed sitting for a moment after he left.
The café returned to its soft murmur—the clinking of spoons, the smell of coffee, students' whispers…
Everything is as it should be.
Except that I wasn't here.
I was there.
On that day.
The first day at the institute.
It was unbearably hot, the sun scorching.
I walked out of the inner courtyard carrying my books, determined to start this year with confidence, with a smile, with a better version of myself.
Then I heard them.
Laughter… not laughter.
Laughter with fangs.
Four senior students.
Their words are sticky, too close.
They approached me the way a shadow approaches the light when it loses its patience.
Everyone saw.
Everyone avoided looking.
Not because they didn't care…
But because fear was easier.
I tried to endure, but I couldn't.
I decided to ignore them so I wouldn't cause trouble for myself or anyone.
But they took that as a weakness and went further.
One of them grabbed me hard, trying to pull me.
I felt helpless—like prey being devoured under the gaze of its pack.
And at the moment when the air began to tighten around me…
He stepped forward.
I didn't hear his steps.
He didn't speak.
He made no sound.
His presence alone was enough.
He grabbed the boy's hand and threw him away from me.
His eyes…
Can eyes make you feel cold?
It wasn't anger.
No challenge.
Nor heroism.
It was the look of someone who had known something far worse than this, countless times.
The look of someone who had seen the bottom and returned with nothing left to lose.
He stood in front of them the way a wolf stands before a pack of hyenas.
With a calm no normal human should possess.
He didn't shout.
He didn't threaten.
He didn't raise his hand.
And unbelievably…
They stepped back.
As if something in their bones, in their nerves, in their blood… understood he wasn't an opponent.
He was an ending.
I didn't thank him.
I couldn't.
I was trying to breathe.
And he…
He turned and disappeared between the corridors, like a shadow, before I could even understand what had happened.
To him, it was something ordinary, not worth attention.
But to me, he was like the heroes I'd read about in novels
and watched in movies and series.
The warmth of his hand never left me.
We were in the same year but in different classes.
What would I do to talk to him?
Perhaps consider visiting the cafeteria or the library every day.
How can I get him to notice?
All I could do back then was watch from afar, with time frozen for me in that moment.
Then the miracle happened… this year, when I entered the classroom and saw him sitting there in front of me.
I couldn't contain myself.
I could finally look him directly in the eye
And for the first time, time began to move again.
I return now to the café.
To the cup in my hands.
To the empty table before me.
I breathe slowly.
That day was the moment something inside me leaned toward him…
Not admiration.
Not love.
Not attraction.
But a deadly curiosity.
Who is he?
Where does this frightening calm come from?
And what does he carry on his back…
To look like someone who has seen something no one should ever see?
I place my hand gently over my chest.
I feel a pulse that doesn't feel like mine.
As if my soul is walking toward him before I understand why.
I whisper, so no one hears:
"MOHITO… what took you from yourself?"